Productivity Growth and Environmental Regulation in Mexican and U.S. Food Manufacturing

Many argued during the NAFTA debate that trade liberalization would favor Mexican over U.S. food processors, especially because of lax environmental laws south of the border. We find through an examination of profit functions that productivity growth in Mexico has outstripped that in the United States, suggesting free trade indeed will benefit Mexican suppliers. U.S. pollution regulations have had no impact on the profitability or productivity of U.S. food manufacturing. In contrast, Mexico's swiftly rising environmental standards have enhanced food processors' productivity growth, corroborating the Porter hypothesis. Pollution law, therefore, has favored Mexican over U.S. food processing, but for reasons few had anticipated.     

Environmental Preservation, Sectoral Unemployment, and Trade in Resources

This paper develops a general equilibrium model to examine the optimal level of environmental preservation in terms of its costs and benefits for a closed as well as an open economy. The optimal preservation policy for a closed economy is to tax the general population and use the tax revenue to compensate affected workers. Furthermore, for a small open economy, free trade in resources can meet whatever shortage of domestic productive resources that may occur, thereby leading to a higher optimal level of environmental preservation.     

Application of an ecosystem function framework to perceptions of community woodlands

Owners, local residents, government, and conservation organisations can express divergent preferences in the development and management of local woodlands. The perceptions of these four groups were examined, in the context of three community woodlands in Eastern England, using an ecosystem function framework. In a pilot study, residents were able to allocate a relative importance to woodland ecosystem services which were then related to “regulation”, “habitat”, and “production” or “information” functions. However residents also placed importance on negative services or “dis-services” associated with the woodland ecosystem. Therefore a fifth category of “dis-services” was included in the main survey which included 84 local residents, three woodland owners, three government institutions, and six representatives from conservation groups. Each of the four groups placed greatest importance on services associated with habitat (16–39% of the total importance) and information (30–50%) functions suggesting, in this example, mutual interest in the use of woodlands as a habitat or recreational resource. By contrast a potential area of difference was the particularly high importance placed by one owner on dis-services such as fly tipping. In addition the woodland owners placed higher importance (10–20%), than local residents and conservation groups (7–9%), on the productive services of the wood. This suggests a need for communication when production-related operations affect recreation. The ecosystem function framework appears to be a useful approach for highlighting potential tensions and areas of mutual interest in the management of semi-natural ecosystems.     

Developing a competency model for private club managers

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties and factor structure of the competency model for private club managers. This study developed and identified a valid and reliable model for managerial competencies that can be applied to private club managers. A total of 596 club managers responded to the survey, and the respondents were randomly divided into two subsamples: sample A was used for the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and sample B was used for the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). EFA resulted in 58 items, consisting of 10 dimensions, and the CFA confirmed the 10 dimensions of managerial competencies model (51 items), consisting of (1) golf, (2) facility maintenance, (3) human resources–legal, (4) leadership–interpersonal, (5) food and beverage, (6) club governance, (7) sports and recreation, (8) accounting, (9) marketing, and (10) strategic management. A model was developed in order to further understand important managerial competencies needed for managing a private club operation in the United States. This model can be used to update certification requirements and professional development programs for club managers, as well as update university curricular offerings.     

Measuring Systemic Risk: Capital Shortfall and CSRISK*

This study proposes a new measure of systemic risk named CSRISK, which identifies a financial institution's capital shortfall under the worst scenario conditional on a substantial market decline. The CSRISK index requires only public financial data, including accounting and market trading information, which is time and cost effective. The empirical sample consists of 238 US banks over the time period 2003–2013. Overall, we find that it is increasing from 2004 to 2009 and then starts to slightly decrease. This systemic risk measure has the potential to be widely applied in the practical aspects of risk management and macroprudential policy making.     

Information-sharing in health and social care: Lessons from a socio-technical initiative

Advances in information technology have led to new and innovative approaches in data-sharing, analysis, interpretation, and the potential for real-time responses to changes in health and social care status. However, health and social care information is not only complex but often socially and personally sensitive in ways that do not apply in other domains. This requires adoption of a tailored interdisciplinary (social, ethical, legal, technical and data science) and intersectoral (health and social care, academic and commercial institutions and citizens) approach to technology development. The authors present some important lessons to date from ongoing development of an innovative infrastructure for sharing health and social care data.     

IS FULL EFFICIENCY ACHIEVABLE? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY IN TAIWAN

This paper aims to propose a feasible framework for estimating the efficiency of input factors for banks and the adjustment of these factors necessary to achieve full efficiency in the short and long term. Based on a sample of 39 Taiwanese banks during 1999–2011, the framework recommends a scheme along with a set of adjustments empirically that allow the banks to not only achieve full efficiency but also save 10.3% of the total costs in the short term and 8.8% in the long term. This scheme amounts to short‐term and long‐term savings of NT$3.6 billion and NT$3.1 billion, respectively. (JEL C23, D24, G21)     

ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND HUMAN CAPITAL: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY OF THE LITERATURE

Abstract Grossman proposed an individual's health can be viewed as one aspect of their human capital. Following this line of thought a number of recent papers have reported a positive impact of alcohol consumption on earnings. The rationale for the existence of such a relationship is the positive impact of alcohol on physical and mental health. We conduct a meta‐analysis to determine whether such factors as: the estimation technique, the presence of ex‐drinkers in the sample, possible sample selection bias and publication bias may all contribute to these findings. An additional suggestion for the positive relationship between alcohol and wages is the presence of a common set of personality traits that determines drinking behaviour and also leads to higher earnings. We examine this relationship by reviewing the literature that investigates if the personality influencing aspects of alcohol consumption influences measures of human capital. We also survey the significant body of research that has examined how alcohol consumption has been found to influence educational outcomes and the work force participation of problem drinkers.